


Trip Fontaine

by Lunch_Milk



Category: South Park
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Exploration, Hand Jobs, M/M, Persistent Summer Love, Pining, Underage Drinking, teenage crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 12:31:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14332536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunch_Milk/pseuds/Lunch_Milk
Summary: It’s not a matter of being possible, but impossible; Craig learns by hand, slipping tentative fingers into soft sun blonde tresses, benign curves of blooming marigold, keenly watching the manner in which Kenneth McCormick—the summer’s boy—mouths and kisses over him, before unzipping, before tugging, before whispering, “I’d die for you.”





	Trip Fontaine

**Author's Note:**

> kenny's awfully enigmatic in this. watch out for him.
> 
> also, sex.

|||

During a sabbatical of peculiar origins, Kenneth McCormick eludes South Park for a week, and when he finally returns from wherever or whoever’s evil clutches on Saturday, Stan Marsh lets him sunbathe in his backyard. Craig is there to witness the curve of his bare spine turned toward the clouded skies, draped in lumps of pewter and dove. The redundancy doesn’t seem to be an issue to Kenny, whose skin is already loved and adored by the sun. The sculpt of Kenny’s sinew and bone, tinged with color, shifts beneath meager sunlight whenever he yawns or stretches, catlike; Craig is captivated by his ease, beguiled from afar.

Effortlessly, Kenny moves against the emerald hue of an old ping-pong table; his prone position is simply a stroke of luck. The table’s narrow legs hold him and the thin wood doesn’t dare topple or bow under him. To the world, Kenny is somewhat sacrosanct. He’s able to keep the toes of his tattered sneakers lolling beneath him and a glass of half-empty lemonade motionless next to the slope of his shoulder.

He lies in a specific pose for a millennium, one arm extended to the west and the other dangling from the table. Fingers curl quaintly while Kenny’s expression remains a mystery, like any other countless facet of him. From the bay window in Stan Marsh’s kitchen, Craig watches a prolonged summer-like breeze sweep through Kenny’s discombobulated hair, counting the endless seconds of stillness until Stan catches him looking with such remarkable intent and intervenes with a mischievous shove. He coos, “Pervert.”

Stan hardly pushed, barely prodded the ball of his shoulder with fingertips apt of spiraling footballs, but Craig feels problematic nonetheless. He’s afflicted with pangs of voyeuristic wrongdoing. It rushes like the fervent titillation that accompanies a brush with death, and then, like a wave of silk tossed over him in the dead of summer, dreadful realization follows. It’s a dilemma; Craig could’ve been drooling—or worse. He could’ve fogged the window’s glass with dreamy exhalations or clouded the room with his pent up tensions that were fond of cramming themselves like heavy books of trepidation and denial on his bodily shelf. He thinks of his dark, dim irises drawing themselves into shapes of cartoonish, pink heart. Molten discomfiture careens through every vein and artery, and yet, he manages to deadpan, “Is he dead?”

Stan laughs, “Nah. He’s just pretending to be.”

Both knees weaken like cooked angel hair noodles. The heart breaks, in a way—and what does that even mean, _pretending to be_? Craig doesn’t pry, but does consider prying as he settles against the small sill of the window, back pressed to the pane. He swipes at his mouth with his sleeve briskly, forgetting the quandary of his teeth curtly abusing the fullness of his bottom lip. Sweet loneliness rushes, blooming in begonias, even deep breaths, and a quiet shade of scarlet passion. All this _feeling_ is unlike him; Craig keeps his expression as bitchy as possible, ignoring the embodiment of attraction outside and Stan’s omniscient grin pointed his direction. He opens his refrigerator and leers at him over the white door peppered in family photos and souvenir magnets from Florida, Arizona, Wyoming. In a low, mocking tone, he chuckles, “Don’t be embarrassed, Tucker. It’s okay if you look.”

He pulls out a bottle of merlot by the glass neck and an assorted cheese platter, donned in plastic; Craig eyes them both with curious consideration, left eyebrow jerking north. But Stan slides the wine and the cheese on the counter, looking past him, through the window, narrowing eyes as if Kenny were nothing but a speck. He inches nearer, shoes scuffing tile, gaze glancing at Craig’s muted confusion as he remarks, “He doesn’t mind.” Their two months of counseling has led to Craig being able to cope with this: Stan’s hand cupping his chin, after the occurrence of his reluctant permission. He grazes the smooth underneath. His lips curl. Craig’s never seen it before.

“Trust me.”

Stan swivels his skull despite himself, and the scene he’s subjected to is altered, but mostly untouched. The thick cloud cover must’ve dispersed; Kenny’s arms are folded beneath his chin now, brilliant and warmly shaded by the sun’s abundant rays. He lolls on a bridge of entwined fingers, tilting to look through the window at both boys—batting lashes and curving an ample mouth into a lopsided smile, interrupted and eclipsed by bitten and discolored knuckles, plum-colored—another fucking mystery. Stan waves. Craig doesn’t. The chill of the fridge finally whisks across his skin—two ruefully pink cheeks and two paler forearms—evoking smatters of goosebumps across all expanses, amplifying already present respiratory distress.

He thinks of Stan feeling the pulse quaking in his jaw, seeing the soft line of his blush expanding like encroaching borders becoming of an invasion. These are familiar nerves—the same eager nerves he had as his sexuality budded in elementary school through wholesome kisses with Tweek and chaste thoughts of blonde boys, running fingers through their hair. They swelled into creeping apprehensions that were the epicenters of middle school disasters; Craig remembers restlessly turning fifteen his freshman year of high school, snatching Kenny’s orange hood similar to the way he had snatched his chullo seconds earlier—returning the favor, almost—and there was beauty, that fucking smile lacing two lips into something sweetly deceptive. He might’ve been smitten then, reeling that moment back so he could relive that disbelief.

That day, Kenny let a sophomore touch him behind the football bleachers, unveiling himself for her and unknowingly for Craig, who observed their intimacy from outside the high school football arena, in the vacant parking lot—traumatized to a certain extent. That night, Craig conjured the memory, placing his consciousness between him and her—forgetting her; Kenny was there, and the only other variable that accompanied their cohesion was the infinitesimal opportunity that complemented dreams. He let wayward fingers feel along the hems of his pajama pants before sinking deeper for the first time, ashamed for thinking of _this_ , a touch prompted with a kiss. He throbbed with impatience, eager nerves. And now, as Kenny candy coats what’s exposed of him in temperate sunshine, twisting Craig’s intestines into knots that enhance the detestable effects of teenage crushes, Craig croaks, “Get off me.”

Bu it _is_ a crush, isn’t it?

Stan obliges to his command with a subdued snort, cupping the cradle of his palm around Craig’s throat like a threat, fingertips squeezing his airway for an instant—and if he wasn’t so terribly occupied with repressing lavish daydreams of leaning over that ping-pong table to lap into Kenny’s smile still radiating in its existence, he’d punch him. Instead, Craig glares at Stan amid a vivid frown, through a dark contour of eyelashes. He obliviously screws the cork off the wine, sighing when he hears the pop, “Kenny _loves_ attention.”

A hankering for everyone’s regard suits him—the platinum blonde of his hair, the cerulean depths of his eyes, the pink, soft insides of his mouth, of which, have unfathomable desirability embedded in them. He’s South Park’s local heartthrob, prying looks and whispers and confessions of romantic infatuation from teenage girls to middle-aged women. He found a role as Craig’s despicable crush since freshman immaturity. He’s been careful and wordless about it, clandestine and sly. Never telling anyone has its consequences; the concept of Kenneth McCormick can quiver in his belly like a horde of moths, simmer low between his legs as a guilty pleasure, or explode in abnormalities: soft blushes, chewed lips, and aching chests.

What facet from Kenny compelled impulsive and reckless mania from everyone in his radius? It’s impossible to discern clearly, without a cascade of dreamlike thoughts and memories—like that time Craig let him copy his homework in statistics class in the midst of an arduous attempt to disregard the way Kenny looked at him, took the paper from him, and commented on the silky path of his cursive, “Your handwriting’s pretty, Craig.” Kenny had never addressed him like that before, and Craig wasted another two weeks wishing for him to call his name again, or at least compliment his handwriting once more. The recollection balloons with warmth. Craig rolls up his sleeves, where they’ll stay as long as he’s cornered by Kenny’s vicinity, the blasts of overwhelming dread he feels from his natural attraction. He’s probably still blanketed in crimson embarrassment. Stan’s probably still looking and beaming again, shamelessly. Surely, the thought of Craig having feelings for one of his friends prods at some receptor of satisfaction.

The wine glugs into twin glasses. Stan, amid a mouthful of diced cheese, mutters, “He’s not the center of attention, I mean. He’s different.” The bridge of his nose scrunches similar to the way Craig’s does—how fucking irritating. He scowls, crossing arms over his chest in a look of defiance and disinterest, even though their conversation is as blonde as Kenny, as summery as the tint on his skin and, presumably, the taste of his kiss. Craig’s skin is a reddened encasement of velvety, silken sentiments that are as purple as the bruises on Kenny’s knuckles. Stan tilts in concentration, eyelashes aflutter, “I can’t describe it. But you understand, right?”

Craig thinks of Kenny’s presence, forever captivating in the corners of whatever earthly opus the planet seems to create, on whatever warm day or cool night that he encounters him. Stan is his foil—this boy, Kenneth McCormick, is where they differ completely. How couldn’t Kenny be center of attention, even if he’s not the _center_? He becomes downy in thought, but Craig never answers Stan’s question aloud. Instead, he quietly waits for whatever else he has hidden up his sleeves; Stan Marsh’s charisma always carries something more. The awakened sunlight peers into the window, into Stan’s home, onto the pale nape of Craig’s neck, knowingly, as if it was Kenny’s stare manifested in a tepid sunray. It even gleams in Stan’s eyes, on the cusps of the two wine glasses, inundated to the brim.

“Don’t you ever just want to, like—I dunno—just _kiss_ him, very, very _softly_?”

Craig’s innards are cream.

|||

Kenny had emerged after lunch as if he were a revelation, swathed in afternoon sunlight and promise. Craig still had flecks of lettuce lodged among the gaps in his teeth. He had feuded with Stan all that morning after counseling, fueling a detrimental and mutual exasperation that led them to unfold and set up the ping-pong table outside while engaged in juvenile disagreement, just as their counselor taught them to. Thereafter, they played twenty-three games, all of them resulting in Craig’s defeat and all of them handled with an appropriate amount of his chagrin. Their competition eventually dissolved into throwing the ping-pong balls at each other, seeing if they could plunk them off one another’s foreheads.

Craig merely happened upon Kenny in the midst of other motions. He lunged behind the expansive width of the only tree in Stan’s backyard, under the cool shade, successfully evading the white ball that popped against the tree’s bark, feeling his chest’s exaggerated expansions and compressions. His chullo fell. He bent to pick it up—and there were suddenly, two mucky sneakers pressed to earth, yards away. Ascension of Craig’s study ushered the complete regard of two legs, two arms wound together behind the unblemished bend of a spine, pulling a wrinkled and worn shirt upwards, revealing bronzed skin in increments. Craig found that mess of hair atop him, the color that shone in the sun, so far from where he stood, and he knew: Kenneth McCormick.

The shirt was gone by then, gripped between fingers rather than clutched by the hooks of his body. And while Craig seemed mystified by his weight and his color, ochre and honeyed, Kenny had turned to face him or whoever else, lashes flurrying, oasis blue gaze trickling down to the canvas of Craig’s shoes and slinking back up to his placid astonishment. He simpered under his scrutiny, hanging his shirt from the perch of his index finger before dropping it somewhere behind him against shy and scattered bursts of grass that peeked from the earth. A soft greeting escaped from his smile, fingers briskly undulating in a wave and snapping behind him in a tangle.

“Hi, Craig. Stan.”

His voice was shallow, lacking the depths so exalted by the hordes of girls at school—nevertheless, he softened Craig’s blood into a duvet of warmth and diminished his brain into a consumable porridge. The hold he had on Craig was unbelievable, even by his own crush-addled standards. But Kenny _did_ greet him first, which didn’t necessarily register—not when Craig was embroiled by his luminescence. He couldn’t even manage a response, mouth crumpled into a pensive and faint frown, thinking that this Kenny, fidgeting and swaying amid uncut grass and flattering dandelion sprouts, could be a mirage prompted by dehydration and overheating. In the interim, Kenny veiled himself with his arms, virgin-like, unlike him. He was seemingly timid, a trait Craig would never associate with Kenny—but it looked good on him, attractive. Jaw splitting, Craig had to prepare himself to speak, to tell him to unwind somehow—but Stan clapped a palm on his shoulder a moment before, intercepted the situation for him, and interjected, “Don’t mind him, dude. Tucker is just a jackass today.”

Developed instinct countered, “Fuck you.”

And Stan’s charisma perked, “See? This humidity is getting to him, I think.”

Kenny’s smile twitched with restricted laughter, a shallow dip of an elusive dimple that pinched the left cheek, “I didn’t know you were friends with Craig.” He tilted his chin so he could look at Craig still adorned with speckled tree shade, like a creature that slinked out of the black lagoon. He was this short-circuited entity, overly rattled from bare skin and new boundaries—and how fucking embarrassing could he have possibly been?

He thought as Stan replied to Kenny, shrugging, “We’re not friends, really.”

|||

Stan and Kenny talked. Their conversation was uncut, full of exaggerated inflections and tones; Craig wasn’t involved too much. He was more of an observer, a closeted pervert struggling to keep compulsive thoughts away, a bit of a daydreamer riddled with reclusive tendencies. He stayed quiet mostly, while Stan explained Craig’s presence to Kenny, how Kyle had left to tour Dartmouth that week and how “Tucker” was reluctantly his replacement during his absence. The color between Kenny’s eyebrows creases, and Stan follows, “We have counseling, remember? After… _you_ _know_.”

Kenny knew; Craig watched him realize in a kind of sudden reminiscence. The pink circle of his lips parted with a gasp and Craig’s internal organs combusted, a consequence of something similar to discomfiture. It wasn’t that what happened between him and Stan was anything that warranted embarrassment—but Kenny could drum up conclusions that distort the truth or hinder any eventual fruition. Nevertheless, he nodded, listening to Stan as his blonde bangs bobbed, mouth clenched in a thin line. This prolonged contact was mandated by Stan’s and Craig’s counselor, who not only wanted them to reconcile but bond. As if Craig couldn’t hear them, Stan muttered, “He’s a prick. They’re both pricks.”

“Craig is too?”

“Tucker is the biggest prick.”

Craig snorted, a touch of a smirk gracing his expression. He tried to hide it, tucking his chin to the crest of his collarbone. A gust sounded through the tree’s leaves and the strands of midnight that escaped from underneath Craig’s chullo, and he was reminded that summer was currently lasting unwaveringly, though autumn would turn quickly enough, accompanied by crystals of frost and wintry temperatures. There’d be no opportunity to see Kenny stripped of his shirt, let alone his parka as the months convene with snow. He’ll be folded within and shrouded by everything and everyone. He’s such a summer boy, the exemplification of the season, and when Craig thought of his inevitable loss of habitat, his smile collapsed, becoming soft and impossible. He caught a glimpse of both Kenny and Stan, who surveyed him for a beat of silence; Stan’s frown budged.

“Do you even really _know_ Tucker?”

Kenny didn’t answer coherently, shrugging and mumbling something incomprehensible, but hopefully sweet as his words smothered between brushes of pink lips. So Stan introduced him to Craig with blatant indifference, but they’ve gone to school together since before they could walk, before crushing was even a _thing_ —so their negligent meeting was pointless. Kenny touched his hand anyway, prying it from the cool of his proximity and bringing it into the light. A shadow divided Craig’s wrist like night and day. Kenny pressed the palm, thumbed the veins, dawdled there as if he were familiar; under a façade of apathy, Craig marveled. Kenny had to reach across a void of nothingness and shoot a smile—so much fucking effort for him.

“Nice to meet you again, Craig.”

In the bliss amassed from the expulsion of his name, falling from Kenny’s lips like snowflakes, Craig nodded dumbly, preoccupied with being hopelessly love-struck. Inexplicably, Kenny’s smile only blossomed further, perpetuating further cardiac agitations and mitigations—the cycle of excitement and remorse, indescribable longing and forced disinterest. Wordless, Craig observed the flirtations of his and Kenny’s fingers as they parted from each other, nearly twining together—but Kenny tugged himself away, curtly, tying his arms behind his body again. Eye contact fleeted like paper planes; Kenny was downcast, furled in on himself like a love note, lips pursed. It was kissable; Craig gawked without remorse.

And Stan took up the responsibility of rescuing Kenny from Craig’s persistent awkwardness shortly after, resuming their lighthearted discussion about whatever, which was naturally an annoyance, a spark of jade jealousy; Craig consequently became quiet, nudging the toe of his shoe against his ankle, letting a warm haze come over him—a lavish dream of sorts, where he could be the one to rescue Kenny from uncomfortable encounters and weeklong disappearances. He was engrossed. A touch couldn’t disturb him.

In his inattentive reverie, he admired the caramel freckles donning Kenny’s bare shoulders, those muted caramel flecks arranged in spontaneous smatters like constellations born of the sun’s affections. He appreciated Kenny’s ripped jeans, the pallid threads protruding from the holes and tears; they were snug on his hips, taut amid his joints as he shifted from foot to foot. He seemed coy, almost, as if he didn’t want to be seen—but _he_ was the one who rid himself of his shirt, languidly, with excessive motion, extending needless muscles and limbs in an exhibition that sent Craig into anaphylactic shock. There was a lick of blonde lashes directed at him now, a glance of cerulean blue that fleets electric, a cusp of feeling. Craig’s fingers seize fistfuls of nothingness. His jaw hurt; the muscle melded to it contracted.

Kenny asked quietly, “Is it a problem if I steal your backyard? Just for a minute.”

“I don’t care,” Stan says. He looked at Craig’s pulsing cheek, gestured, “C’mere.”

Kenny devoured already limited distance with his body, coming closer, close enough for Craig to easily swipe a finger across his shoulder to taste what shimmers there, all of its sweetness. He burned, despising himself and every rampaging, uncontrollable thought. Almost involuntarily, Craig remembered all the breadths among them at school: the space between their desks in chemistry, the six other classes in the school day, their segmented lunch, any other moment they could have together but don’t simply because the world didn’t want to. That’s the epitome of crushing, isn’t it? The entire planet is against you—and yet, Craig often thinks of being able to touch him, the ever-lingering possibility, the capability he could garner to breach that awful expanse, and then—then _what_? There were poignant blanks like holes in a memory, frustrating loopholes that curdle the brain. He had flashbacks of the fourth grade, of holding hands, of never letting go. He couldn’t then. He wouldn’t now.

The propinquity between Kenny and Stan brimmed with humor, poking fun at Craig’s presence, his awkwardness, his withdrawn tendencies—but Craig didn’t hear. Envy resounded from the stern of his mind in complete cacophony as Stan quieted their discussion, putting himself between Craig’s restlessness and Kenny’s endlessness. The blonde’s skull lolled back between his shoulders, and his throat reverberated with laughter that he quickly tried to conceal beneath his palm, “Sorry, Craig. I don’t mean to laugh at you.”

“His name is Tucker.”

His knuckles smacked against Stan’s collar, “Shut up, dickwad.”

They continued with their argument, hissing at each other with false vehemence and lively gesticulations—playfulness.  Craig wondered if they’ve always been like this, regardless of their practically nonexistent contact at school. The thought of them—the _look_ of them enjoying each other’s presence compelled the fold of arms over his chest, his signature move. It’s defiance, defense, the infamous Tucker wall of impenetrability. Huffing, he slyly skims the dim swell of carmine manifesting on Kenny’s expression when Stan scoffs, “You have to ask Tucker, man. He’s the one with something to prove. Hasn’t won a single game yet.”

“Why do _I_ have to ask _him_ when you could ask him for me?”

Once more, Kenny looked: thick blush, knitted brows, bitten lip.

And Craig, confronted with _such_ persuasion, deadpanned, “We were done anyway. You can do whatever you want.”

|||

Now, the sky billows cloud formations the color of smoke. Thunder crackles benignly, softly against Stan’s home, and in the company of a vivid stroke of lightning. Its white tendrils leak into pewter firmament; the color splashes through the glass, refracting off two wineglasses—one empty, the other relatively untouched. Kenny’s lithe is met with furrowed brows, subtle apprehension. Craig hears the pelts of rain before he’s able to see them, cascading in plump droplets against the bay window and against Kenny’s slumbering body. He comes to immediately, all but jumping out his skin when presumably cold and wet rainwater plops onto his exposed back. The rain morphs into terse slugs of ice, assailing everything uncovered, including Kenny. Wind slants the storm into his face; Craig and Stan both watch as he grabs his lemonade glass and discarded shirt before bolting across the yard.

Due to inebriation, Stan’s reaction is delayed. He slurs, “Well, fuck.”

He staggers, so Craig paces to the door for him. The knob eases into his palm, and the thought of Kenny trudging across the railroad tracks to home in the heart of a tempest exasperates, as if he were _escaping_. It’s needlessly possessive; Craig grimaces, and the frown prevails as he swings the door open, never anticipating Kenny’s fist balled in his face, seemingly prepared to knock before he had interrupted. Their surprise is parallel—momentary, until it thaws into something different. Kenny shifts, agape even as hail elicits red welts on his bareness, placated by rain.

His skin runs with rivulets of precipitation. His bangs coalesce into a delta of blonde, intertwined and drenched like the contour of his lashes, darker than they’ve ever been. He smiles, licking the wet that careens down his chin and cheeks from around his lips, triggering a profound longing behind Craig’s sternum—a want for a kiss. He leans, right shoulder scuffing the door’s frame; Craig discerns their nuanced difference in heights, how Kenny’s inclined to meet his gaze, how he’s shorter by only a few mere inches. And yet, it seems ideal for them.

“Hi, Craig.”

It’s like they haven’t seen each other in years, despite the hour they’ve been exchanging looks through the kitchen window, between sips of wine and sunlit dozes. Kenny’s expression crunches when a torrent of rain and hail collides with his existence. The arms return, encircling his inflated torso, the expanding diaphragm. He sighs.

“It’s hailing. Can you believe it?”

Craig is unresponsive, still staring at his unique dimensions and details, mostly at the natural disposition of his smile. So Kenny, amid a shiver, hesitantly touches the other’s chest with outstretched fingers and telling pressure; Craig’s motion to let him inside is immediate. He grunts, “Sorry.”

Kenny’s entrance into the unlit living room is a mellowed shade of blue like sadness, and yet he coddles Craig, rewards him for his previous gracelessness with current proximity. He tosses his muddied shirt elsewhere, lays the rain-ridden glass on the coffee table. By now, Stan manages to pull himself out of his stupor, although he’s still pressed against the kitchen counter, pouring another drink. He calls from afar, “You’re all wet.”

“No shit.”

“Take a shower, then. I’ll get you some clothes or whatever.”

“Okay,” Kenny cedes. In lieu of going upstairs and showering, he notes Craig’s company again, whose body is warm and close—an option, among other prospects. They could embrace on the nearby couch and Craig could kiss the streams of water from his skin. He tries not to respond to deep blue gaze, at least until Kenny speaks in a placid tone, “You’ve been drinking wine?”

“Stan had four glasses. I had two sips.”

Kenny exhumes an amused breath, “What now?”

Craig jingles his keys in his pocket, feeling breathless adjacent to Kenny. This is new, and the novelty is suffocating. He scarcely utters, “I think I might leave before it gets too late.”

This time, Kenny doesn’t hesitate, seizing his shirt’s sleeve betwixt his index finger and thumb promptly. He says, “You can’t leave.” Craig may look perplexed, under the guise of rapidly multiplying exhilaration. It’s the furrow of his brows, perhaps—or the strain of his frown, trying to keep a flustered grin from making an undue appearance. Nonetheless, Kenny proceeds, “It’s storming, dumbass. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if you left. I’d be worried.”

“I can drive home. I’m parked outside.”

“It’s not just that…”

Kenny quiets, lips pursing into a rogue monster, deserving every variety of kiss available. Craig envisions the possibility of kissing again—always thinking of the possibility of kissing. He looks down at the shadow of a saturated handprint on his chest, directly above his heart. Kenny had touched him—not once, but twice. Even now, there are cold marks along his sleeve, where Kenny grips him close, ascending onto his toes to look into darker, dimmer eyes. He whispers, “You don’t need to go home.”

|||

So Craig didn’t. He adhered to Kenny’s wishes and stayed there, remarkably out of place. Watching Kenny watch him as he ascended the wooden steps, following Stan’s lead, Craig listened to the blonde’s order, expelled in a contradictorily hushed pitch, “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t move a muscle.” He left a trail of raindrops on the stairs, an indication of his dreamlike occurrence. He had passed like a specter, or a porn star, moving with an indelicate aura that enticed and tempted.

And now, the shower echoes in harmony with the storm. The rear curve of Craig’s skull thuds against the living room wall. He thinks of Stan Marsh, renowned high school quarterback Stan Marsh, _almost_ perfectly straight Stan Marsh, currently equipped with a girlfriend and an athletic scholarship and a subtle urge to kiss Kenny McCormick’s mouth, very softly, like one would kiss a teddy bear when he’s in need of the knowledge, the technique, and the practice. He thinks of his footsteps now, popping upstairs, as he meticulously picks out what Kenny will wear once he’s out of the shower, drying himself with a possibly pink and fluffy towel, like swathing his body in a tangible cloud. He hopes Stan’s intoxication forces him to trip, to have an accident of sorts; Craig wants to hear the thud of body from below.

He strives to avoid any stubborn thoughts of Kenny’s body in general—like the nape of his neck, sensitive and sunburned from previous activity—even if the reek of shampoo and shower gel infiltrates his current solitude of Stan’s living room. But they’re persistent, determined to be sustained like the winter’s presence in the birth of spring. In spite of himself, he thinks of Kenny’s hair under the water’s spray, sopping and sudsy, right alongside with the arc of his body. He thinks of curled, wet bangs adhering to him, being pushed back, and kneaded between soap and fingertips. Through his nostrils, Craig sighs. The figment of Kenny’s honey-love skin, cherry-tinted and steaming from high temperatures, passes him as if it were a train, whipping all inhibition from his psyche like shreds of clothing.

Without the burden of shame, Craig thinks of touching him, cutting his index finger down the wet slope of Kenny’s spine, feeling each lovely vertebra arch for him. Kenny must be so pleasantly unaware. It’s likely that he’s busy pondering Kenny things: pretty women, sex in strange positions, basking in the sun carelessly, with all the syrupy time the universe can provide for him. He doesn’t have an inkling of the blush blotching Craig’s cheeks, the thoughts encroaching his imagination, incorrigible and colored with the hue of sex. He cocks his head, remote and listless, considering compact bathrooms, flimsy shower curtains, and avid streams of water descending from spouts. How simple it would be for Kenny to invite him, or even Stan, inside that balmy warmth, that wet passion?

“You’re such a fucking freak, Tucker.”

Stan peers at him from the stairs’ banister, vexingly amused: “I leave you alone for _five_ minutes…”

His daydreams snap. The interruption causes Craig to snarl, “ _What_?” He propels himself from the wall, thinking of ripping the smile off Stan’s face with his bare hands, the way he’s always wanted to, with excess brutality and belligerence—and suddenly, he encounters the straining tension between his legs like an anvil dropping onto the thick of his skull.

Stan snickers, “You have an _issue_ , yeah?”

|||

Eventually, the carnal ache subsides with enough ridicule from Stan, who jabs at the incident incessantly, even in Kenny’s somewhat sacrosanct presence. He came from the shower with a towel that contrasted with Craig’s vision atop his damp, blonde hair. It was coarse and navy blue, like an ocean embodied in a handmade quilt. Stan’s clothes hung from him—black sweatpants, black sweatshirt, black socks. His stomach roared, and Stan pressured him until he let Craig fix a turkey sandwich for him, with extra mayonnaise and crinkled chips on the side. He poured him a tall glass of wine, instead of lemonade.

Kenny thanked him, offered him some of the chips, and naturally observed the tip of Craig’s tongue peek and meet specks of white condiment on the back of his hand—how’d it even get there in the first place? He must’ve careless, impetuous; Craig inwardly listed his flaws as he sucked mayo from his fingertips in Kenny’s crosshairs and subtle blinks of artificial light, storm-induced. Now, as they collide and diverge with placid gazes, quiet murmurs, uncomfortable and untimely nudges of skin when they reach for potato chips simultaneously, Stan mocks, “Who were you _dreaming_ about, Tuck?”

He elbows Craig’s knee underneath the dining room table, and the look that Craig provides for his ministrations evokes Kenny’s curiosity. While chewing, he murmurs, “Dreams? You have lots of dreams about people?”

Stan drunkenly snickers, “You could say it like that...” But Kenny is overwhelmingly naïve, too innocent for the reputation precedes him: lewd exploits in the school stairwell, egregious deeds done in restaurant restrooms. His eyes are wide, cheeks full, lips smudged with white. It’s undeniably cute, crush-worthy, as usual. He feels thick as honey. Craig initiates contact, touches the swell of his mouth, swabs mayonnaise away with gentle fingertips. It collects. He can kiss the skin it daubs, and the impulse can’t be denied. Kenny flutters in response, an outbreak of thinly blonde eyelashes that quiver in disbelief—and before Stan can bark, Craig mutters.

“Most the time, I have dreams about Stan’s dad.”

|||

What follows isn’t essentially a _quarrel_. It’s loud, but it isn’t aggressive—and Kenny, between sour slurps of merlot, laughs all the while, so that must mean _something_. Craig notes the loveliness of his smile as he teases Stan, “Randy’s pretty sexy with that mustache.”

Overtop his suggestive whistle, Stan groans, “ _Oh my_ _god_.”

“Probably a good fuck too.”

“Shut up!”

He smiles a little, so Kenny can reciprocate, “Don’t you think so?”

“Goddamn it, Tucker!” Stan swats at him, but Craig clutches his arm. He hisses, “Kenny really isn’t even—he’s not _actually_ \--”

“Not ‘actually’ what?”

“Gay,” Kenny interjects, “I mean I’m not…” He blinks, “I’m not attracted to men.”

Craig’s lips twitch, indistinguishable from a smile or a frown, “Oh. Well.”

“Don’t lie,” Stan says, and the abrupt optimism that inundates Craig could emit electric waves. He leans forward carefully, resting his chin on a platform of meshed hands. He observes Kenny’s possible denial, the flick upon the other boy’s cheek, “I’m not lying.”

“You’re not telling the truth.” Stan addresses Craig now, spouting recklessly, “He kissed a boy before.”

Kenny cuts him off with a cuff to his shoulder, “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t like it.”

Then, the rebuttal sounds, “He kissed him _twice_.”

Craig sees the blush on Kenny’s cheeks unfold and darken, the way his teeth settle into the seat of his bottom lip as he shuns eye contact with anything else other than his lap. He acknowledges the streaks of blue drawing from his pupil to the peripheries of his iris and the flecks of green impossibly apparent in his own eyes. Craig is only a smidgen jealous, insignificantly jealous when compared to the proportion of his anticipation. He pries, “You were curious once?”

“For a _very_ short period of time.”

“And you’ll never be curious again?”

Kenny’s hair jostles as he shakes his head, back and forth, “I’m not—I mean, I couldn’t.”

“But if you had to?”

“What?”

Craig explains to him, incredulous, “If someone put a loaded gun to your head and said that you _had_ to date a male, or else--”

Stan inserts himself, “Good Lord, Tucker--”

“He’d have to be something totally different. I think I’d have to be in love with him already,” Kenny answers without delay, and his blatant honesty is endearing, so endearing that Craig’s left eyebrow jolts upward, that his smile flickers, “Interesting.”

“Not even,” Stan mutters, moving to hold Kenny’s wrist tightly, stressing his contused knuckles, “What did you _do_ to yourself, Ken?”

Kenny looks but ignores him after Craig persists, “So you’re straight, for now?”

“I’m very straight,” Kenny replies, “for now.” He endures the strangulation of Stan’s fingers around his wrist, leaving red marks like the beginnings of love-bites. He copes with the inquisitive touch of Craig’s gaze too, the plethora of silence in the room more stifling than the grip on his arm. And the sentiment lingers, as if there’s something underlying among them, an untruth that perturbs both Stan and Craig, mainly due to their slow digestion of the information, no matter if the information pertained to nothing new; Kenny kisses girls in the halls between class, in the gym beneath bleachers, in the crannies of the library, behind the covers of 18th century history books. In the locker room, he fucks them, spreading legs and holding thighs, imprinting the lengths of his fingers on their skin so they can flaunt them under skirt hems.

So his sexuality isn’t necessarily a surprise, but Craig’s disappointment is still unpalatable. It tastes like hell. He swallows, a thick lump of bitterness slithers down his esophagus, and Stan chuckles with vexing omniscience, “I think I know what you did, where you went for a fucking _week_.”

Kenny softens a little, “Shut up. I’m just straight.”

|||

Lilac sundown cultivated the nighttime, a feeling of lukewarm dissatisfaction. In the time that has passed, Kenny downed the rest of the wine and the bag of potato chips. It’s still raining gently, and the quiet of Stan’s home emphasizes the mellifluous cacophony, the thunder rolling in the distant mountains. Platonically, Stan corrals and keeps Kenny in the pool of his lap, while the blonde contests with Craig’s legs, fingers treading tender along kneecaps, touching what can barely be considered appropriate for their association. He’s intrigued, enlightened, impaired with modest inebriation; Kenny asks meager questions as Stan kneads his forehead into the delicate slight of his spine seeping in and out of sleep, “Have you done your chemistry homework yet?”

“No.”

“Me either.”

Craig lets Kenny wander his innermost regions, from the midsection of his thighs to the two midpoints of his shins. He’s met with a mess of drying blonde hair, still damp. Watching as Kenny lingers, tentatively amid the cramped tract between their bodies, he murmurs, “When I finish, you can copy.”

“On Monday?”

“Or,” Craig suggests with a shrug, “I can drop it off for you tomorrow.”

Looking through a curtain of blonde, Kenny’s left dimple remerges, “Or you can stay for awhile—teach me how to balance chemical equations.”

“…Is that an invitation?”

“I mean,” Kenny licks lips, expounding, “I think it’d be a waste if you came all the way to my house just to give me your homework.” His fingertips float behind kneecaps, scratching there, pulling Craig forward a few inches. He peers at the more apathetic boy’s staunchly unaffected expression, held together miraculously, and continues with a certain meekness that mounts as an intimation of color of cheekbones, “We can—I dunno—study together?”

It feels surreal, ticklish behind the bends of his knees and airy in the hub of his chest cavity. Kenny’s coyness has returned remarkably, tireless throughout their interactions together. It’s a culmination, in a way, fulfilling an intangible quality of climax. The sensation surges in a hole of quiet, plummeting from Craig’s lips as an undertone indicative of doubt. Kenny is tipsy, after all.

“A date?”

In response, Kenny snorts, neglecting the soft sounds of Stan nosing his back and the whispers of Wendy’s name, “No, Craig. I’m not--”

“I know. You don’t like boys.”

“I just want…” Kenny exhales, downcast again. He stammers, struggling for the word that can fit best, the phrase that can fall into place without incident, “I want to get to know you better, I think.”

“As friends?”

Kenny’s fingertips establish a rhythm against his knees, akin to the storm outside. He smiles, “Yeah. Friendship and all that.” But his wellbeing deconstructs itself as he moves to centerfold of Craig’s legs, which have recently come together, unyielding and unmoving. Craig intercepts his hands, connecting them, tangling them in an uncomfortable bundle. Kenny flinches, apologetically, “I’m sorry. Too touchy-feely, right?”

Craig shrugs, “I can deal with it.”

It’s uncomplicated, soft. They explore each other’s hands, the veins, the knuckles, the curves of their wrists. Craig mentions the bruises in a whisper and the blonder boy emanates a blush, teeth exploiting the volume of his lower lip. He presses a cheek to Kenny’s palm, bombarded with faint wonder, “You’ve been shy.”

“You’re so quiet during chemistry,” Kenny clarifies—and there’s the disruption of Stan adjusting his arms’ snare around a slim waist. He doesn’t continue until he feels secure, and when he does, he whispers, “You never talk or anything. I don’t know much about you, even though we’ve had the same classes since…I’m learning you more. That’s all.”

Craig nuzzles the soft of Kenny’s palm with his mouth, pursed into something that could hardly feel like a kiss, “Me too.”

And Stan chooses that moment to stir, so Kenny can rip away, so Craig can feel cheated. Releasing his friend, he yawns, “Jesus Christ, my legs are asleep. Get up, Ken. You’re killing me.”

Kenny moves halfheartedly, standing up with a sigh, “You lied to me. Craig’s not a prick, Stan.”

Stan smacks lips, still recuperating from his catnap, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll learn,” Stan says, “or you’ll remember. Either way.”

Craig and Kenny share a look that withers before the blonde pulls at Stan’s limbs.

“C’mon. Let’s watch TV. There’s something I want to see tonight.”

|||

“Red Racer? Seriously?”

Stan is skeptical. Craig is impressed. The opening sequence flourishes, colorful and nostalgic—just the way he remembers. If he beams for an instant, if he loves a little more, no one mentions it. Beside his wonder, Kenny declares, “Don’t act like you didn’t like it. You used to have a soft spot, asshole.”

“I was _nine_.”

Kenny coordinated their seating arrangements, so Craig and Stan were wedged together on the couch—and the couch itself was paltry. It was only made for the concept of two lovers, or concurrently, two teenage boys maintaining the necessary distance apt for recovering acquaintances, so Kenny curls around an uncomfortable loveseat arm like a feline. Evidently, he can’t find purchase, stirring and nudging Craig’s shoulder, frequently bumping him with careless indifference and thoughtless benevolence; Craig detects intimations of Stan’s shampoo, citrus-like and evasive. He can feel Kenny’s occasional exhale, gusts of wine warmth, sudden bursts of laughter tracing his nape, the inky ends of his hair—and then there’s the thrill of touch, like a coil of electricity winding up the spinal column: Kenny’s thumb suddenly pressing into an artery, his fingers brushing the sensitivity below Craig’s collar, the dip of the clavicle.

Heart palpitations enlarge to the size of melons and bodies become taut and rigid with expectation; Craig knows Kenny can feel him, so he looks, but only after checking on Stan, who’s fallen asleep for a second time tonight. He’s slouched to his left, against the crook of the loveseat, completely unaware of how Kenny enraptures. The two boys retain fundamentally imperative eye contact, weighing motives, flickering attentions between slow undulations of eyelashes. Something dark and unknown swims in oceanic blue eyes; Craig throbs, listening to the saccharine quality of Kenny’s voice babble, “I’m sorry—but you’re so red here. I mean, the color looks good on you. I mean—Craig, are you blushing--?”

The urge to slip a limb behind the small of Kenny’s back, to pull him into the meager space between his legs is impulsive and irresistible.

“Pay attention,” Craig murmurs, grasping Kenny’s chin within a cage of clammy fingers, forcing him to look at the flashing television screen and away from the blossom of blush on his expression. He ignores Kenny’s inscrutable faint whisper, the inner curl of thought—what if Kenny enjoys this roughness? What if it rips down his him in a shiver, in a plethora of unbecoming thoughts and fantasies? Dodging total enthrallment, Craig damns the idea of holding Kenny down and open, watching his mouth’s pink swell struggle to form words while he fucks him somewhere more private. “This is my favorite episode,” he says with as little abnormality he can muster as his heart cruising down a path of turbulence. But Kenny doesn’t even look, too preoccupied with edging the beloved inner of Craig’s thigh with delicate fingertips, slowly outlining the seam of his jeans, “Oh.”

Craig’s reaction is urgent, instantaneous. He jolts—melts. His carnal need aches again, swelling as a discernible bulge beneath his zipper. It becomes an exigency. He places a heavy palm on Kenny’s back, discouraging the option of rutting against him or lifting him onto his lap and letting him grind as he pleases, even if he knows that Kenny could do it all by himself. He wouldn’t need the assistance of his Craig’s hands on his hips, pushing and pulling—and _shit._ He squirms, wantonly in Craig’s perception, beckoning for similarly wanton touch. Clenching eyes shut, centering himself, Craig rasps, “I used to watch Red Racer all the time. When I was younger…”

“I know. I remember.”

One of Stan’s snores tear through the living room; Kenny whispers under the noise, quietly, rambling, “You were obsessed. All you cared about was this cartoon and…” There’s a pause, a rake of nails scratching down denim, a careful breath inundated with the scent of wine—and then Kenny chuckles frivolously, “I noticed you then, I mean.”

Indiscernible carmine coddles Craig’s cheeks. He smoothes over the bones arranged in Kenny’s spine without thought, avoiding his gaze, having inner eruptions of sheer panic. Chewing on the thick of his lip, Craig heeds their incongruent juxtaposition. He has a fucking boner—and Kenny is endowed with a smile that mirrors the television’s color.

Unhurried fingers morph into a confident palm caressing Craig’s thigh, the heel of it coming to thrust against the junction of his pelvis. His thumb abruptly digs into the divot there—and Craig spasms with a yelp, bucking completely into the ridges of Kenny’s vertebrae. The blonde boy laughs, his other palm slapping over the grin he curves at Craig behind his shoulder’s slope. It’s riveting, capable of tugging Craig into another corporeal trance—and how could Kenny ever be just _straight_ like this, touching and toying with another boy with such effortlessness? He slurs just enough, sweet mirth persisting, “You’re hard, Craig.” There’s a lilt in his tone, a hitch of breath, “You _want_ me…?”

He’s in awe, maybe, looking at Craig with such unabashed interest—a flash of lashes, a subtle incline of chin, a faint touch teetering the edge of Craig’s erection. But _everyone_ wants his _everything_. Should it be a surprise if Craig didn’t? Would his rejection be a wrench in the heart? Media blue envelops and winks on Kenny’s skin as Red Racer wins another fucking trophy cup. He patiently waits for an answer that flunks, “It’s your fault.” Craig frowns, clutching Kenny’s arm with the ardent smolder of a blush painted on his cheeks, which won’t ever recede. Reasoning aloud, he evades Kenny’s curiosity, the fingers inching towards his distinct arousal, “You _teased_ me. I couldn’t--”

“You could have,” Kenny whispers, pinches that sensitivity between his hip and thigh again—and Craig his grits teeth into a powder of enamel and bone, easing up his slim backbone once more. He restrains a moan as beautiful fucking friction swims through him like liquid cocaine; Kenny laughs, “But you didn’t.” He massages that spot, incessantly, chuckling when Craig’s cock passes over his spine every time, “And I don’t mind.”

Craig huffs, “You don’t mind a lot of shit…”

Kenny’s mouth works into a smile again, as he directs Craig’s forlorn hand to his slender side and curls each finger, one by one. “Is that bad?” he inquires, innocently, straightening his posture as Craig concedes to this. He steadies his grasp, prodding and pressing flesh that forfeits under his pressure. Kenny looks back at him all the while, keenly watching him over his shoulder—and for what? What does he want? Is there something that he _expects_? An answer, perhaps? Craig scours himself for one, irises becoming moonless, lips moving to the bend of Kenny’s nape, “Depends.”

And then, with awkwardness and fractions of encouragement, trial humps occur—like a dog on a new piece of furniture, figuring if it’s suitable for him. Craig eyes a motionless Stan, who snores naively, without care. Kenny lets Craig use him patiently, humming a tune Craig knows he’s heard before, somewhere. Kenny is being so generous, so fucking _indulgent_. He thinks of the implication—what other instances of Kenny’s _kindness_ have others received?—until the blonde turns and their mouths stumble across one another in a cumbersome kind of kiss—too many teeth, too much hot air, and barely any lip. In Craig’s perspective, it’s not much of a kiss, but Kenny sighs endlessly, nipping the corner of his lips as if he’s been deprived of affection. He moans, already.

“Again.”

Another tricky graze, another reckless connection of mouths that lingers, and Craig is too breathless to kiss anymore. He deadens against the loveseat, observing the shadow of his hips pluck over and over in opposition to the flat of Kenny’s ass. His crush is noiseless and obedient, committed to his body’s wishes. It doesn’t feel right, but did it ever? Craig pauses, hand shifting to Kenny’s ribs, too fucking embarrassed to continue, “I can’t—”

But Kenny hums, not remotely hesitant as he scoots backwards against Craig’s dick, blathering, “I know. I get it. Here, right?” And Craig feels that sweet compress of his entirety on his lap, purposeful and tenacious. He mewls loud enough to let Craig know that he _wants_ him too, maybe more than he could fathom. Any rationality, any wariness, any impression of misconduct is quickly lost in a ripple of lust; Craig groans in the affirmative, “ _Fuck_.”

And they convene like they’ve loved before, as if they’ve touched like this outside of dreams and journal entries. Craig curtly melds to Kenny’s body, roughly slinging an arm around his front, his shoulder, across his neck—another finds the jut of a hip and clings. Craig leaves love his nape again, pecking pursed lips there, avid but insignificant kisses. Together, they move without basis: Kenny sliding back, hoisting up, pressing down wildly—Craig repeatedly rolling himself against his vile crush, scrabbling to spread the blonde’s thighs, despite Kenny’s willing spreading of himself. In their intimacy, furtive glances at Stan’s seemingly tranquil sleeping expression become constant; Craig looks for signs of him waking, praying he doesn’t stir before they’re finished with each other—with whatever they’ll do.

The uncertainty is an ecstatic chord in Craig’s being, thrumming inexorably. He thinks of wrapping his mouth around Kenny with whorish enthusiasm, of changing positions, of the movement that would have to be involved—could they manage without too much noise? In a tidal wave of heat, the concept of sex comes to him. Fucking like this, without any real lubrication, is a possibility Craig considers. He envisions scissoring his fingers inside Kenny’s ass before he drives his length into his tightness, prompting screams and cries that’ll rattle the windows. Craig moans, ever motivated by the blonde’s keen actions: a hand swiping back, finding his folding stomach, raking down to the inelastic waist of his jeans, and yanking.

Then, like an epiphany, a curt notion arrives, a stroke of courage; Craig’s elbow digs into Kenny’s hip, hand cupping his jutting member. He palms Kenny’s clothed cock, ghosting lewd nothings in his ear when his fingers wring that stiffness, “Grinding on me like this—you’re such a whore.” Kenny whines, slowing delectably, glancing backward so swiftly that their skulls knock together audibly. The manner in which he moans—softly, accompanied with another dreamy sigh—it’s obvious that he relishes the brush of their panting gapes, this improper kiss. He nibbles on Craig’s upper lip, “Yeah, yeah—I’m _filthy._ Tell me.”

But Craig can’t. He chomped on his tongue when his forehead collided with Kenny’s temple—and besides, any words he would’ve had in this moment dissipate in a lock of gazes, a terrible understanding that _pulls_. Kenny’s _beautiful_ like this—blonde strands bouncing on the plane of his forehead, nudging lidded blue eyes teeming with ardor, like flames. Craig thinks: He was never _just_ straight, was he? He curves now, arching as Craig’s fingers linger over his quivering abdomen before dipping underneath the elastic of his sweatpants, teasing the hems of his boxers—and he remembers that these belong to Stan. His imagination is lewd, unbridled; Craig wants Kenny to come after all, and he can’t help but visualize the spill of his warm pearl love in Stan’s clothes. Thinking of his eagerness now, the expression he’d make in the soon future as he climaxed, Craig lodges teeth in a sun-loved nape again, “You have to be wet, fucking dripping.”

Kenny breathes, “Why don’t you find out?”

Fingers move by themselves, audaciously. Craig scours through a thatch of pubic hair, to Kenny’s protruding arousal, utterly damp with pre-come. A breathy laugh falls from him in the midst of a small joy, “I fucking knew it.” What he feels is _galvanizing_ ; Craig’s nervous system is wracked with a shudder. The girth and the length and the immodest wetness—Craig could imagine what he could do with him. He murmurs, mindless, indecent, and shameless deeds against the shell of Kenny’s ear, a contemplation of the obscene desires collected over four years of wet dreams.

And Kenny whimpers, helpless, “You dream of me.” Craig’s index finger taps the tip, gathers a tangible film of fluid, and follows a bead of arousal down the underside, trailing across the vein. He’s feathery there, extorting a tremble of thighs from his despicable crush—who’s crumbling, crying, “So fucking _soft_ —I didn’t know, I didn’t--” He grips the base, deliberately, to shut Kenny’s saccharine mouth; he thrashes, furled fist flanked by his teeth, two pert lips enticing osculation. The television roars with commercials and Craig curses beneath them, snatching at Kenny’s wrist with his free hand, hissing, “Stop fucking your fingers.”

He doesn’t. He can’t. He whines and gnaws and sucks on purple knuckles brainlessly until Craig caresses his cock, and consequently, Kenny chokes on the feel of him, body throbbing, “Craig, ah…” It’s slow, magnetic, full of ragged breaths and quiet hushes whenever they happen to expel something too loud and lustful from their mouths. Moments pass like eternities; Craig’s dick leaks in his boxers, jumping as Kenny slacks and readjusts his hips with a squirm, clasping over the hand Craig holds him with. Intimately, he guides him, curling fingers, adding pressure, and whispering, “Like this, I want you to touch me here. Right here.” Craig burns crimson, suddenly embarrassed with their predicament again, with the sensation of Kenny’s fingers entwining with his as they become slippery together. He nuzzles his cheek against the blonde’s crescent-shaped spine, Stan’s sweatshirt as black as the night peering between curtains. Feeling romantic in a way, like roses could bloom in his lungs, he experiments with a noticeably slick stroke; Kenny shudders, “ _Fucking_ _heaven_.”

Smothering an incoming cry, he swallows two of his fingers drenched in his own wet, distinctly sucking on them—and Craig’s arm explodes with vehement, almost loving effort, yearning to propel Kenny past the ecstasy of heaven, to vigilant clusters of constellations with an orgasm so cosmic, he’ll incinerate in his reentrance through Earth’s atmosphere. He’s getting him there, pinpointing stars in blue irises with irking endurance; Kenny moans despite his restraints as this becomes his turn to buck and rut, hips rocking forward to meet Craig’s waiting clutch, pushing back against a bulge prominent enough for him to prattle absolute _nonsense_ , “I bet your dick is _huge_. Too much for me—I wouldn’t be able to take it—I couldn’t.”

Craig growls, sinking tepid teeth into his thick cotton sleeve, “Shut your mouth.” He wrestles with the front of the sweatpants, leaving Kenny exposed to the television’s bursts of Technicolor and the stale air revitalized with the scent of sex. Craig’s gaze peers around his body to see him glisten in blue flashes, pretty-like. Kenny cries, hisses, shushes himself before grasping at Craig’s zipper again, groping for his cock. It’s endearing; Craig blushes, kissing the space between the collar of Kenny’s shirt and the column of his throat. He’s undeniably perfect, seething and twitching in his slick grasp, “Faster, please, I—I need more.”

Craig tightens, hastening his movements enough for Kenny to fucking _wail_. Craig slaps a terse hand over parted lips with a curse, feeling hot and uneven exhales condensing against the flexions of his palm. Sliding to the bobbing thread of his neck, he squeezes the way Stan squeezed him hours earlier, catching a glimpse of his dark lashes fluttering in his peripheries. Craig rockets to the moon with the sudden hope that he’s having a nightmare. The notion of Stan jolting from his slumber and seeing this fruiting euphoria—Kenny thrusting, moaning, _coming_ —smolders Craig’s lungs with a voyeuristic wrongdoing, unadulterated _thrill_. He thinks of how he despised that idea before, how he’s in love with it now, how Kenny is quickly turning him into some fucking _deviant_. Reeling for oxygen, so breathless from fascination, he gasps, “So fucking _beautiful_. Want to see you.”

He pulls a cornucopia of damp blonde hair back, so he can watch Kenny bawl, “Craig, Craig, _Craig_ —”

They become a blur of driven motions. Pitch swells. Limbs are held. The thumb at Kenny’s slit presses. Moans escape like secrets. Kenny’s hips stutter, relinquishing a small portion of the responsibility of his satisfaction to Craig. The forearm he had coursed around the blonde’s cheek is taken into his mouth, that soft and pink monstrosity. He suckles a hickey there, sore and mauve, amid a wrecked hum sweetly, cloying his cries with the sound of his voice. Craig’s heart lurches in his loveliness, even as Kenny’s fingertips lap at his still clad and aching cock, plunging between fabric and skin for a graze against odd hair and pelvic bone.

Kenny lips leave Craig with a pop, “What if—what if Stan—oh, _fuck_.”

“You think about him _now_?”

“I just—I wanted _you_ so much--”

Now, Craig hums. The palm encircling Kenny’s cock shifts with a swivel of Craig’s wrist, prompted by a union of sensual anticipation and inexplicable jealousy. His despicable crush can’t cope. Kenny’s imminent orgasm is comprised of bodily shudders, clipped moans, little bursts of his tone in unrecognizable extremes, stalling hips, and pink parted lips that shine with the remnants of Craig’s kiss. He wants another. Watching diaphanous lashes lap together in tears, Craig drapes his mouth over a damp cheek. Kenny is hardly able to whisper, “Craig, I—I’m so close.”

Leaning in for the shade of osculation he wants, Craig murmurs, “I know.” He kisses his peach-soft cheek, the subtle dip underneath the bottom lip’s protrusion. The roll of his mouth unto Kenny’s isn’t curt or sex-driven; rather, Craig moves over him delicately, like he was capable of shattering the blonde’s existence into countless pieces at any moment—but he realizes that he could, in a way.

The muscles in his arm are vexed, straining. It’s a matter time—a matter of nothingness that Craig discerns before their lips coincide wetly, smacking amid each exchange. It’s tentative and careful, as if they were still in the process of acknowledging their desires for each other, despite their togetherness until now, and yet, this kiss is able to pool in the belly with lavish warmth, undulations of butterfly wings, and feathers of untamable motions.

Attentively, Craig’s tongue probes Kenny’s softness, his endless malleability as palpable as velvet. He runs along impeccable rows of teeth, tasting the intimations of nicotine and bittersweet wine. Like molasses, the kiss becomes lethargic. It’s unrequited, one-sided; Kenny is slack, panting against him with nebulous phrases, longing for Craig’s intimacy but too spent to venture. Jerking away, he surrenders vividly, begging, “Don’t stop. Please, please--” Craig must’ve slowed. He feels himself against Kenny’s length, lacking pace. When he returns to a rough, hasty tempo, Kenny nearly implodes with shivers and trembles.

Craig loves.

He adores the hues of Kenny’s exhausted blush, which is barely distinguishable in this perpetual darkness and relatively uplifted by kaleidoscope hues from the television—ruptures of raspberry and paintbrush strokes of violet like watercolor smearing over his moistened skin. A pandemonium of dense, envy green burdens his body and clouds in his widened eyes before transforming into passion-colored crimson, mayhem. Craig never looks away, never relents. He could do this forever, even in the midst of the accumulated mess they’ve made—all the pre-come unmistakably slicking with every pump, descending Kenny’s cock, between the other parts of him Craig yearns to feel. Everything slips. He rambles, words unfurling like evening primroses in the dead of night. Craig mentions love maybe, even if it’s premature; Kenny mewls, nonetheless. He forgoes love, holding his other hand, entwining fingers, babbling about fucking him on Stan’s mattress, “I always wanted you. I always--”

Kenny whines, _yes, yes, yes_.

“I’m—I can’t—I’m gonna--”

It’s inevitable. Craig waits for his thick seed to spurt over the ridges of his knuckles, onto the loveseat. He’ll work Kenny through his orgasm fondly, milking him of his desire until pearls of come drip unto the carpet from his cock, until he is limp against him, breathless and boneless, but pleading for more kisses, more touches, and more Craig. If Stan wakes now—too fucking bad. Craig’s attention won’t be divided; Kenny is the still point of the turning world, the axis on which Craig revolves.

But Kenny pries himself from his clutches curtly, tugging his pants over the jounce of his still hard cock, scrambling for the kitchen with a palm flung over his mouth, the same swollen lips Craig had just kissed and suckled like flower stems imbued with honey. His stomach swirls with concern, heart submerging itself low between the twist of his intestines. Is this _rejection_? And if so, how could it possibly be? Together, they were teetering on the peripheries of something tender—and now, Craig feebly watches as the kitchen light flicks, burning retinas, waking heavy sleepers; Stan stirs, finally. Arms ascending like the wings of swans, he yawns. Craig exhales alongside him, dunking the hand bathed in Kenny’s pre-come beneath his thigh and atop the loveseat, feeling the forgotten erection still trapped in denim wilt; in the kitchen, Kenny heaves. The turkey sandwich he devoured earlier splatters in the echo of the sink as merlot-tainted chunks; Craig just fucking knows.

Stan groans cacophonously before coming to his senses, jolting upright just as Craig had imagined. He feels a prick of annoyance; a frown twitches at his lips. Stan grumbles, “What the fuck? What--” He blinks harshly, jarred by the sound of Kenny’s hurl sloshing in his kitchen sink, “What happened? Are you two okay?” He squints at the glaring kitchen light pouring into the doorway, and then, with enough scrutiny to cauterize heartbreak, he narrows his gaze at Craig, whose innards are recurrences of cream.

 “Nothing. We’re fine.”

|||

**Author's Note:**

> what can i say?
> 
> tell me how you feel, fam. or, if there are any glaring errors.


End file.
